Re: Dying news media looks to Apple tablet for hope

[Guest guest]

I find it highly entertaining how people can pronounce that they can't afford

something, or it'll cost this much or little, or the battery life will be this,

etc. before it has been released.

My observation: it has both been more than I'd hoped for (price, battery life of

10 hours) and less (I was hoping for a true change in how to type on the thing,

ala one of Apple's patents that shows capacitive touch sensors on the back to

allow typing on the back, thus leaving an unobscured screen, all while holding

it while standing up) and some other things.

However, one thing's for sure: the print industry in general is in for

incredibly rough waters for making enough money to even break even, let alone be

very profitable. Sadly, I'd judge part of the problem is that their quality

level has gone way down: they publish stuff online without proper checking for

facts or even spelling and grammar, in hopes of not being undercut by those that

beat them to the punch, and then they print the same thing on paper the next

day. Well, that's definitely the case for news publishers, but I've also seen

paperback/novel publishers get really sloppy in their work, too, and just shovel

out more, faster, without taking the time they should: I've seen books with

paragraphs repeated, etc. that make me wonder: wait, they started up a printing

press and bindery to sell these books with so little checking???

Oddly enough, there may be some unintended side-effects of books and papers

going all electronic: people won't see as much need to have nearly as large of

apartments and houses to store all their reading material, and all that entails,

so they'll be less troubled by needing to move for employment out of their

current area, etc. which will allow them to save a lot of fuel for

heating/cooling larger places, and also allow them to live in cheaper places

that are smaller which are more common in tightly packed city areas and not as

much in urban wastelands. You add that to the compound effects, if printing

goes all electronic, that unsold copies don't need to be carried around in

vehicles, and even the sold ones don't need transportation (bits are easy to

send most anywhere, quickly and little fuel) such devices, if one (or a single

standard: the iPad uses an open standard for their iBooks reader) really takes

hold and printing goes digital, there will be meaningful changes for how people

live and play and to some degree, work. However, they've still got to get over

the initial hump of purchase price for readers: at $499 for the lowest-end

model, there are people that will balk at that, for various reasons. The Kindle

by Amazon.com costs less, but then... it's limited almost entirely to books in

black and white, and not much else, and in all cases I'm aware of, there's still

the DRM issue. Now, think about it: if books and all other printed stuff is

predominantly digital, there will be a lot of retail stores that have no viable

reason to maintain their paper/book/magazine section (for non-bookstores)

because, at some point, the turnover will be too low for it to be profitable to

dedicate that space to printed material, when they can find something else for

people to buy at a faster turnover rate.

Of course, there's going to still be a large number of bookworms that will only

give up their paper books when they're dead, and there are plenty of luddites

that won't want to get involved with anything digital that they have to deal

with, no matter how easy it is to use, and there are other reasons besides.

However, we still need to keep printed material in other forms than digital for

backup purposes, and those that still have an absolute need for physical

dead-tree (or other solid, low-tech solutions) versions. One thing that people

should have learned from observing such stupidity as Katrina and New Orleans:

never put absolute trust in the technology of man when it comes to things of

utmost vitality, as the laws of physics and all other manner of things beyond

our control will always assert itself on our existence, and prove there's no

such thing as forever and perfect when it comes to man's creations.

All that being said, past history has predicted we'd have flying cars by the

year 2000 (well, perhaps they've existed, but... lots of practical issues, like

the reality that too many people aren't competent on the ground's surface, let

alone adding altitude) and computers would all have speech recognition and

keyboards would be gone and computer AI would be sentient by now (HAL 9000) and

such things as the mythical paper office: some of these things (paperless

office, flying cars) are as much due to human nature and psychological issues or

outright limitations, and others (speech recognition, sentient computer AI) are

limitations of what we can create and what's within the laws of physics within

the current technology, and the observations are: most people don't have

videophones (don't want to give up the privacy, though the tech exists, no

problem!) all the tech we have has made it *easier* to generate wasted printed

material (I can print over 20 pages per minute, color! Oops, made a typo, fix,

reprint: no white-out for me!) and there's something to be said for the

perception of warmth of holding paper books, as opposed to some metal and glass

device, so it remains to be seen how it will all progress over time. Either

way, I strongly suspect most places that do massive paper printing won't do well

in 20 years from now: very little that's not already paid for is likely to be

printed by physical printing presses, and while the iPad still uses a rather

contemporary and well-known LCD screen, electronic paper is making progress: in

10 years, quite probably (but, again, there's uneven progress) maybe people

*will* be able to curl up with a good book, on something that's much like the

old dead-tree paper, and not have something that shines light in their eyes, and

ideally, would be color, too. Well, we'll see! :-)

>

>

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100127/technology/us_it_internet_media_books_tele\

com_apple

>

> Dying news media looks to Apple tablet for hope

>

> Wed Jan 27, 7:49 AM

>

> SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Struggling US newspapers and magazines may seek Internet

Age resurrection in a so-called " Jesus tablet " -- a computer expected to grab

the spotlight Wednesday at a much anticipated Apple event in San Francisco.

>

> A notebook-sized version of an iPod Touch that Apple chief executive Steve

Jobs is expected to show the world could try to do for newspapers what iTunes

did for music and what the App Store did for mini-programs for smartphones.

>

> " It will be notable, " said Jim Gaines, a former corporate editor at Time Inc.

who is now editor-in-chief of FLYPmedia. " I don't think this device is the

messiah for print, but it is very possible that its descendents will be. "

>

> Apple's winning tactic of tying content delivery to devices could be more

significant than the hardware rolled out as the California firm's latest

creation.

>

> Newspapers and magazines that have gone digital to stay relevant in an

Internet-obsessed culture have seen print advertising revenue evaporate as

stories and images are freely indexed and shared online.

>

> Apple has led the way in conditioning people to pay for applications, games,

and other content for the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

>

> Apple has reportedly been in talks with online news, magazine and book

publishers and Wednesday's event could include the launch of a version of iTunes

for content generated by those outlets.

>

> Digitally frustrated newspapers or magazines may choose to focus on

" fee-for-service " electronic readers, according to Dan Kennedy, assistant

professor of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston.

>

> " It could be there are some publishers feeling as though they have been buying

into the new media ecosystem, the blogosphere, for 10 years and haven't gotten

one thing out of it, " Kennedy told AFP.

>

> Kennedy had in mind media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who advocates reining in how

websites and search engines use stories crafted by professional news

organizations.

>

> The News Corp. chairman has also been openly critical of the experience of

reading a newspaper on the black-and-white Kindle e-reader from Amazon.

>

> Publishers are placing bets on smartphone and e-reader platforms, according to

a recent survey by the US Audit Bureau of Circulations, which is entrusted to

track paid readership of publications.

>

> More than half of the respondants said they believe that smartphones will be a

vital way to distribute their publications within three years.

>

> Nearly 42 percent said the same about e-reader devices.

>

> News publishers are looking to Apple for a tablet that lets people browse and

buy content in ways that expand on simply reading by adding interactive

multimedia and reference features, said DigitalTrends.com analyst

Steinberg.

>

> " There's a real opportunity for Apple to raise the bar here, " Steinberg said.

>

> " Not only by making digital publications accessible to the mainstream reader,

but also seamlessly interweaving online features, apps and streaming audio/video

content to enhance the general reading experience, " he added.

>

> Reviving traditional news operations will take more than an Apple miracle

device, according to Gaines, whose FLYP magazine incorporates video, animation

and other " dynamic " content to adapt to techno-tastes.

>

> " It is not going to be a simple matter of just re-purposing the content of the

New York Times or anyone else for this new device, " Gaines said.

>

> " It is re-imagining what people want in this new media. We are early in a

stage of transformation of what it means to publish or to read, " he said.

>

> An Apple tablet will be hampered at the start by " unsatisfying " 3G broadband

networks, short battery life, and people's yen for a flexible device that can be

rolled up and stuffed in a pocket, according to Gaines.

>

> " I just don't think this will be the killer device just yet, " Gaines said of

what Apple has in store. " It will certainly point the way. It's all coming. "

>

> Efforts to lure people into paying for content on an Apple tablet could be

thwarted if the hardware comes with a high price and is coupled with monthly

telecom service provider charges.

>

> " I'm minimally excited about it, plus I know I can't afford one, " Kennedy said

of an Apple tablet. " It seems some publishers are hoping it is an attempt to do

the Web all over again and this time make it a closed system. "

>

> Such an effort in an Internet world of unfettered content would have very

limited success, he said.

>

> " I think the biggest problem with the tablet is that it doesn't replace

anything, " Kennedy said. " It is just one more thing you have to carry around.

>

> " It is not going to save the world, not by any stretch. "

>

[Guest guest]

Paper and other physical costs aren't the problem with the media. The problem is a wide perception of bias and fraud held by the people. If the media cleaned up its act and returned to real journalism and got away from advocacy it would probably see readers coming back. Technology isn't going to help them at all.

In a message dated 1/27/2010 11:59:39 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

Dying news media looks to Apple tablet for hope

[Guest guest]

Agreed.

I think I'll also wait until all the quirks are out of these new toys before I

even consider getting one. Additionally, this is just one new thing that can get

replaced with new technology that will be more expensive when IT has to be paid

for.

Books are much better in my opinion.

Let other people get poor with these new things. I can go to a used bookstore

and get what I want for pennies on the dollar and keep them for a lifetime...as

long as I have storage space on my bookcase.

Administrator

I'll stick with books: They don't require any electricity, you can bookmark them

easily enough, and they won't change format on you and if someone wants it,

they'll have to come and take it.

[Guest guest]

And if done right (Assuming Apple doesn't make things too limited, or perhaps

write it as an iPad app that runs at iPhone app size) it'd be the best way to

test iPhone/iPod Touch titles: you can watch lots of interesting diagnostic data

in the extra space, and have a fully interactive application that has all the

same hardware as the iPhone/iPod Touch to play with, including the full

multitouch experience: the iPhone simulator on a regular development computer

can't do proper multitouch testing, nor does it truly work with the other

sensors (accelerometer, compass, GPS) of the iPhone as it is, being a rather

limited simulation. Thus, if nothing else, Apple will sell a bare minimum of

100,000 of them, if only to iPhone developers

>

> This would have some use for programmers. I have some reference documents I

> keep stored on my iPod so that I can keep my development environment open

> and not have to switch to my browser.

>